Section: US & Canada

Federal Budget: Highlights by the numbers $1.4 billion Projected budget surplus in 2015-16 $1.3 billion Amount over six years, beginning in 2017-18, the government will provide to the Canada Foundation for Innovation for research infrastructure at universities, colleges and research hospitals $11.8 billion Promised boost to National Defence...

For the eighth consecutive year, Russia has earned the lowest approval ratings among major world powers in a survey of people in more than 130 countries, with Moscow’s ranking falling sharply in Western nations after its intervention last year in Ukraine. The Gallup survey of about 1,000 adults in each of the countries showed the United...

War isn’t cheap. The Conservative government expects to spend more than $360 million on Canada’s fight against the Islamic State over the next 12 months. That is on top of the $122 million already spent on the war, bringing the total to nearly half a billion dollars. The revelation is contained in the federal budget, making the war...

(Michael Peake/Toronto Sun/Postmedia) To call a federal budget a political document is a cliché. What else would the annual unveiling of a set-piece plan for taxing and spending be? But in this election year, with every eye in Ottawa squinting ahead to the Oct. 19 fixed date for Canadians to go to the polls, Finance Minister Joe Oliver’s...

OTTAWA – Highlights of the 2015-16 federal budget introduced Tuesday by Finance Minister Joe Oliver:— The budget is balanced, with a projected surplus of $1.4 billion this year, increasing to $4.8 billion in 2019-20.— The sale of the government’s General Motors shares, purchased in 2009 as part of an effort to help the auto industry...

Today Poland announced its selection of the U.S. Raytheon Company, supplier of the Patriot air defense system, as its strategic partner for the modernization of the country’s air and missile defense (AMD) systems (negotiations will now proceed, with the final contract to be inked in 2016). In addition to the AMD decision, the Polish...

At its training camp on the outskirts of Kiev this past weekend, the Ukrainian National Guard Azov Regiment held its Spartan Test—a grueling three-hour rite of passage meant to test the mental and physical strength of both new recruits and battle-hardened veterans. The ordeal is the capstone to a two-week-long whirlwind military training program,...

President Nursultan Nazarbayev will extend his nearly 26-year rule of Kazakhstan in an election on Sunday which investors hope will maintain stability in the Central Asian state despite criticism of his rights record. The 74-year-old former steelworker has held power since 1989 when the oil-producing nation of 17 million stretching from the...

Poland said on Tuesday it would buy Raytheon’s Patriot missiles from the United States and chose Europe’s Airbus utility helicopters for further tests, albeit reducing the size of this potential order. The choice of suppliers in military contracts, worth an estimated $8 billion, strikes a transatlantic balance as Eastern...